Losing Brunner will amount to almost nothing when this season gets underway - because what exactly are we losing?

With the depth at forward this year, Brunner would be in the same position he ended last season, playing RW on our 3rd line. If you remember, Brunner scored his first 10 goals playing with Zetterberg in the first 19 games of the season getting close to first line minutes. When the rest of the league started to get their legs back and the quality of play increased, he scored only 2 goals in the remaining 25 games from the third line. The playoffs showed a better GPG rate, but 5 goals in 14 games isn't worth gambling on a 3 year contract when he hasn't played an 82 game season yet.

So, back to the original question which was what are we losing? Considering that Tomas Tatar will be taking his spot, an equally fast but better two-way winger, the answer is almost nothing. I understand depth, but there is no room in the top 6 for Brunner and certainly nowhere on the checking line. You could argue that with Tatars cheaper contract, the fact he is 5 years younger and plays with Grit, this is probably an upgrade. Oh, and not to mention Tatar also proved to be a pretty good playoff scorer last year in the Calder Cup.

Losing Brunner will amount to almost nothing when this season gets underway - because what exactly are we losing?

With the depth at forward this year, Brunner would be in the same position he ended last season, playing RW on our 3rd line. If you remember, Brunner scored his first 10 goals playing with Zetterberg in the first 19 games of the season getting close to first line minutes. When the rest of the league started to get their legs back and the quality of play increased, he scored only 2 goals in the remaining 25 games from the third line. The playoffs showed a better GPG rate, but 5 goals in 14 games isn't worth gambling on a 3 year contract when he hasn't played an 82 game season yet.

So, back to the original question which was what are we losing? Considering that Tomas Tatar will be taking his spot, an equally fast but better two-way winger, the answer is almost nothing. I understand depth, but there is no room in the top 6 for Brunner and certainly nowhere on the checking line. You could argue that with Tatars cheaper contract, the fact he is 5 years younger and plays with Grit, this is probably an upgrade. Oh, and not to mention Tatar also proved to be a pretty good playoff scorer last year in the Calder Cup.

Just like most NHL rookies he hit a wall from playing so much and just wasn't use to it. Brunner and Nyquist gave use a damn good 3rd line, a defense liability but that will take time to learn to straighten out.

With a full training camp, more time to get use to the NA game, and not such a condensed schedule I think he would be just fine.

Losing Brunner will amount to almost nothing when this season gets underway - because what exactly are we losing?

With the depth at forward this year, Brunner would be in the same position he ended last season, playing RW on our 3rd line. If you remember, Brunner scored his first 10 goals playing with Zetterberg in the first 19 games of the season getting close to first line minutes. When the rest of the league started to get their legs back and the quality of play increased, he scored only 2 goals in the remaining 25 games from the third line. The playoffs showed a better GPG rate, but 5 goals in 14 games isn't worth gambling on a 3 year contract when he hasn't played an 82 game season yet.

So, back to the original question which was what are we losing? Considering that Tomas Tatar will be taking his spot, an equally fast but better two-way winger, the answer is almost nothing. I understand depth, but there is no room in the top 6 for Brunner and certainly nowhere on the checking line. You could argue that with Tatars cheaper contract, the fact he is 5 years younger and plays with Grit, this is probably an upgrade. Oh, and not to mention Tatar also proved to be a pretty good playoff scorer last year in the Calder Cup.